There's Treasure Everywhere!

[elfs]

Record Labels

A long time ago, Omaha and I bought a box of records — that's an analog audio format encoded onto discs of vinyl, kids! — somewhat at random, from an elderly couple at the same garage sale where we first bought Kouryou-chan's copy of Hooked on Phonics. Looking back through my LJ, I see that my first mention of it was February 11, 2003, meaning that Omaha and I bought the box in the Summer of 2002. We brought the box home, discovered that our turntable wouldn't turn, and promptly forgot about the box.

Omaha's been in a cleaning frenzy the past day or so, and we decided to tackle the box. What we found was a treasure trove. We're convinced that what we have is a DJ's personal collection of albums from the 1900's through the early 1940s. The oldest album in the collection, of those that even have dates, and most of them don't, is from 1903– 105 years ago.

Unfortunately, what we did not know when we bought the box was that someone had spilled motor oil into it. Many of the albums are damaged beyond repair. We're going to salvage what we can, and if I can fix or buy a turntable, I'll try to record and FLAC as many of them as I can. Does anyone know what the legal status of stuff like this? This is just an amazing collection, all 78 RPMs of Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, and many others that I've never even heard of.

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Most 78 rpm records are made of shellac and will be damaged by cleaning solutions containing alcohol. I don't know what the motor oil will have done to them.

I expect Elf has already bookmarked 78rpmrecord.com (78rpmrecord.com/repair.htm)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Alcohol also destroy vinyl. I tried an experiment once where I had a brush across the record that dribbled out 99% isopropyl just ahead of the needle. The idea was to make dirt float up and be out of the needle's way while also lubricating the needle/groove interface just before passing. And as it evaporates, there was no problem with residue.

it worked splendidly with spectacular crisp highs - for one play only. AFter that the grooves were trashed and the record was worthless. So I abandoned the experiment.

As an aside, trying to mount this on the tonearm itself didn't work, as no counterweighting trick would adapt to the decreasing mass of the alcohol in the reservoir.